We had one of those almost-forgotten weekends where we were free of dog and childcare responsibilities. Two whole nights and days. On the first, we stayed in a posh hotel in town and went out to dinner. On the second, we met up with Daughters One, Two and Three in a pub.
And in between, we went to an afternoon screening of Barbie (fabulous!) – which gave us the opportunity to do something we rarely do: walk down O’Connell Street.
And when I say rarely, I mean years. My weekday journey consists of taking the Dart from where I live on the northside to where I work in the Dublin 2 part of the city centre. But if I head into town to socialise, I go to the same area I work in.
The hotel and pub in the above paragraph were in Dublin 2. In the last decade, I’d say I’ve been to Galway and Cork more times that I’ve been to the main street of our capital city. It’s not part of my mental map; one that is constrained not just by routine, but also by social class.
‘I never know when the Dart will arrive. And Irish Rail doesn’t seem to know either’
‘When the cinema lights came up, we all hugged, and I wondered why, on this day, the magic worked for me too’
I hate running. I tried it and it didn’t do me any good. I can’t be alone feeling like this?
If we don’t expect an improved Government, we won’t get one
Because the problems of Dublin 1 aren’t just about the numbers of gardaí on the streets – it’s about planning and economics. It’s about deprivation, alcohol and drug abuse; about why so many young men need to be violent
Generally speaking, middle-class people avoid the Dublin 1 area. They might shop in Arnotts the odd time or attend a production in the Gate Theatre or go for dinner in Chapter One, but they wouldn’t walk down O’Connell Street; certainly not at night. And you can’t blame people for that. It can be a scary place.
This is a division that has existed in Dublin for decades. It’s just over 1km from Kildare Street to O’Connell Street, but they might as well be on different planets. O’Connell Street feels abandoned.
It was as tatty as the last time I walked down, though with a few additions I hadn’t seen before. But the same jumble of shops, fast food places, casinos and boarded up windows. Herself pointed out that many of the monuments and statues could do with a clean. Yet it still has a unique vibrancy. Visit Grafton Street and the people there are shopping, listening to buskers or posing with their BT bags.
O’Connell Street seems far more multiuse. There are people shopping, there are dodgy-looking characters leaning against walls, there are tourists and there are small clumps of people chatting. For the communities in Dublin 1, this is their main street, where they bump into each other.
And around the GPO, it is still a centre for political expression. As we walked down, we saw three separate protests. It was heartening to see that it still happens, but also poignant: because the people those protests were aimed at aren’t in this part of the city. They are on the other side of the river, probably oblivious to the fact that they were taking place.
Governments – or at least, Irish governments – tend to be better when there’s one straightforward problem to be addressed; but they struggle with anything long term or complex. There’s little big-picture thinking, a sense of the many moving parts that are required to make our country a better place for all of us.
I don’t need to list out the many examples of that. Because the problems of Dublin 1 aren’t just about the numbers of gardaí on the streets – we didn’t see any when we visited – it’s about planning and economics. It’s about deprivation, alcohol and drug abuse; about why so many young men need to be violent.
But our collective reaction to this has been to ignore it, to dismiss O’Connell Street as a kip, as if the street itself is to blame: which neatly moves any responsibility away from the rest of us. O’Connell Street is still the figurative and geographical heart of our nation; and it should be treasured for that. Yet it is a place of inequality and decay. It represents a spectacular failure of what our Republic should be.